Women who believe the Scottish legal system has allowed men accused of raping them to escape justice are calling for the rule of ‘corroboration’ to be scrapped.
Shirley Ross, 40, and Emma Bryson, 46, along with three other women who remain anonymous - are demanding a change, saying the current system has “failed” them.
Each of the five women was denied the chance of having their alleged abuser prosecuted due to the legal requirement for corroboration.
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It requires two independent pieces of evidence before a case can go to court.
The women formed lobby group Speak Out Survivors, and say that the system of corroboration has no place in a “modern” justice system.
From the age of four until she was 18, Shirley Ross was abused by a family friend - but she only found the courage to report it to police in adulthood.
Mum-of-three Shirley, from Edinburgh, said: “The police told me they believed me but because of the corroboration law and because I never told anyone at the time – as you are groomed and trained to do – there was nothing they could do.
“The last 12 years since I reported it to the police have probably damaged me as much as the abuse itself because I was left feeling like nobody cared, that what he did to me didn’t matter.”
And Emma Bryson, 46, also waived her right to anonymity to speak about the “overwhelming sense of injustice” which she felt when the man who she says raped her as a child was able to avoid prosecution.
Emma Bryson is calling for overhaul on Scottish law (Photo: SWNS)
Businesswoman Emma, who lives in Newcastle but works in South Lanarkshire, was abused for four years from the age of ten.
She believes that if the abuse had taken place south of the border, the predator could have been brought to justice - but not in Scotland.
Charity Rape Crisis Scotland is backing the calls to scrap the corroboration law, as many sex crimes take place in private.
In a statement, the five women said: “We believe that this outdated law has no place in a modern justice system, and we hope that by standing together and speaking out we might raise awareness of the impact this law has on the victims of crime.
Read more: Rape accuser: My case shows why need for corroboration should be scrapped
“Many people imagine that the term ‘corroboration’ can be taken at face value, that as long as evidence exists to corroborate an allegation of a criminal act then the police can use that evidence as the basis for a prosecution.
“Unfortunately for us, and for countless others in the same position, when the crime takes place in Scotland that is not the case because the legal definition of corroboration only allows for specific types of evidence to be considered.”
The women said that after having done “everything possible” to bring their own abusers to justice, they now hoped to “challenge a system that is manifestly failing to give victims access to justice”.
Sandy Brindley, of Rape Crisis Scotland, said: “The requirement for corroboration has a disproportionate impact on sexual crime, which often takes place in private.
“It can take a great deal of courage to report abuse to the police, and it can be devastating to be told that your case cannot proceed due to lack of corroboration.
“We believe that is time for the Scottish Government to look again at whether the requirement for corroboration should go.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “Any potential reform of the corroboration requirement needs to take account of research we’ve commissioned into jury reasoning and decision-making which we expect to be complete by autumn 2019, a specific recommendation of Lord Bonomy’s review.
“Since the review reported, we have taken forward a wide range of measures to improve how the justice system deals with allegations of sexual offending and to improve support for victims.”
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